Mother Teresa Humanitarian Image A 'Myth,' New Study Says (HuffPost)

A new study by Canadian academics says Mother Teresa was a product of hype who housed the poor and sick in shoddy conditions, despite her access to a fortune.

The Times of India, reporting on the controversial essay, wrote that the authors asserted Mother Teresa saw beauty in the downtrodden's suffering and was far more willing to pray for them than provide practical medical care. Meanwhile, researchers say, the Vatican engaged in a PR ploy as it threw aside concerns about her suspicious financial dealings and contacts to forgo the five-year waiting period to beatify her.

One of the researchers, Serge Larivee of the University of Montreal's department of psychoeducation, told the school's website, “Given the parsimonious management of Mother Teresa's works, one may ask where the millions of dollars for the poorest of the poor have gone?”

The research paper claims that the celebrated nun had 517 missions in 100 countries at the time of her death, but that the majority of patients were not cared for properly and many were left to die, according to the university website. In addition, the Vatican is said to have ignored a doctor's assertions when it concluded that a Mother Teresa miracle healed a woman who had tuberculosis and an ovarian cyst.

Researchers Carole Senechal of the University of Ottawa and Larivee and Genevieve Chenard from the University of Montreal came to their conclusions by examining 96 percent of the originally researched, published works about Teresa, according to the U of M website. Their findings are to be published in French-language journal Studies in Religion/Sciences.

Well, gee whiz, what took them so long? Christopher Hitchens was debunking the supposed saint of Calcutta back in 1995 with his book, The Missionary Position. Why should it take 18 years for the rest of the world to wake up to the fact that Ma. Teresa was a fraud who seemed to worship suffering, particularly that of her charges, rather than take any meaningful action to ameliorate that suffering?

I doubt this will have any impact on the efforts of the RC church to fast-track the process of promoting Ma. Teresa to sainthood, but perhaps it will wake up some others to the propaganda surrounding her and her cult.

Replies to This Discussion

The odd thing is how little she cared about spending that wealth to make her own life more comfortable. What the fuck good is that kind of money if it isn't being spent on something. The pope was spending the vatican's cash like a drunken sailer, with custom slippers and vatican remodels that were grotesquely over budget and so gaudy that Jesus would have strangled him with his bare hands, if he were real. Clearly, if mother theresa were honestly concerned for the well being of the unfortunate, she wouldn't have been letting a boat load of cash sit there and do nothing.

Yup, I've had religious sorts pull that out as some sort of argument. Mother Teresa (or whoever the given example was) went through doubting phases, but she showed strength in continuing to work for God, despite her doubts.

No, that makes ME better than HER. It's not strength to continue supporting something that you doubt; it's stupidity.

Loren and Napoleon, I am with you. Taking money under false pretenses and using it to buy gold goblets is about as low as one can get. Her hypocrisy about suffering is beyond cruel, it is beastly. While denying people under her care and denying them palliative care represents heartlessness; seeking palliative care for herself is hypocritical; taking money for the benefit of the church and not the suffering represents thievery.

The woman testified that she was cured after a medallion blessed by Mother Theresa was placed on her abdomen. Her doctors thought otherwise: the ovarian cyst and the tuberculosis from which she suffered were healed by the drugs they had given her. The Vatican, nevertheless, concluded that it was a miracle.

The perfect demonstration of, "I took two aspirin and prayed for my headache to go away. The prayer worked!"

Never doubt that the Vatican will argue in their own interest and the interest which advances their dogma. Evidence has nothing to do with it. Truth has nothing to do with it ... because the Vatican, in the final analysis, has nothing to do with the truth when it is inconvenient.

While I think about it, there is corroboration to be found to both Hitchens' and the above's assertion about the lack of saintliness in Ma. Teresa in the book, An Unquenchable Thirst, by Mary Johnson. I was first made aware of this work by A|N member Reason Being, who wrote a blog about the book last year. In that book, Ms. Johnson provides direct testimony to the conditions of the hospices run by MT and how they were managed (or mismanaged).

While I have not read the book myself, RB's review of it and commentary on Amazon.com suggests a report with more than a little credibility.